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While the boys were crafting, the girls had to go to craft class. Potholders, doll dresses, baby socks. With clammy hands plodding on cotton cloths that grew grubby by the week. Grim shards, impatient teachers, and that sting that still fell when you were almost done. For kids who weren’t very good at it, needlework class was a horror. But fortunately a lot of Plus readers also enjoyed it.
Work home
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Photo: The work of Cécile Timmermans: Blood, sweat and tears, that took you a whole year. And if it wasn’t finished, the nuns finished it.
left handed
If you used to be left-handed, it wasn’t made easy for you. Writing with a dip pen was already difficult, but during craft lessons you also had to work in mirror image! The lady often pretended to be right-handed. “Of embroidering, my cross-stitching was the other way around. But when I turned my work around, we were equal again.” writes Plus Reader Inez on Facebook.
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Meshes
That’s what we called filling gaps. And the lady often just made those holes herself. Just shut up. “I’ve been struggling with a big hole in my knitted potholder for at least six months. The potholder was white in color, but my sweaty hands had turned it all yellow and brown. The knitting needles were also corroded as a result,” says Gerda van Alphen.
baby socks
What a horror, those little socks! Andrea Grofics can still remember it like it was yesterday: “When knitting socks, most girls could put them on, but I could kill someone with them, they were that stiff. The needles were ooall four completely bent! But nowadays I really like handicrafts, especially embroidery. Knitting never really worked.”
Photo: Plus reader Liesbeth Moro still has the socks she had to knit 52 years ago. “For one I got a 5, for the other a 7.“
Grandmother
For many Plus readers who couldn’t master knitting at school, their grandmother was happy to come home. That also applied to Plus Reader Trin: “My needlework teacher told me she couldn’t teach me to knit because I was left-handed. I came home crying where my dearest grandmother was visiting at the time. She didn’t hesitate for a moment and told me to sit next to her on the couch and everything exactly what she did. That’s how I learned to knit. And well… right-handed.”
Sewing machine
When we were a little older, we were sometimes allowed to work with the sewing machine. That was fun! “Towards the end of primary school we were allowed to make a crib for a new doll. Partly on the hand sewing machine. Base was a cigar box. I really liked that,” says plus reader Lia.
All’s well that ends well
Many Plus readers hated needlework lessons as a child, but surprisingly, most say they got a lot of pleasure from it later on. “It was always the lowest mark on my very good report card. Too bad, it was due to the pressure of the stingy needlework teacher! But I persevered and later my four children walked in the most difficult knitted clothes,” says Mia Boots, for example. And Marianne van Willenswaard-Aling also took pleasure in it later on. “The years after school never touched a needle in any shape and suddenly I saw the fun of needlework. Making clothes, quilting, knitting, crochet. What a relief that gives. Who would have thought that fifty years ago? I don’t and neither do my first two teachers.”
What are your memories of craft lesson?
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